The Cube Player's Guide to Manabases

Cube presents unique drafting a deckbuilding challenges when it comes to manabases. Retail limited is our only benchmark for drafting, but non-basic lands are so few and far-between that they don’t have a meaningful impact on most drafts. In cube, however, we don’t have to settle for 9-8 manabases of basics only, but how do you navigate mana successfully in a cube draft?

In this episode, Andy and Anthony put their cube designer hat aside and go deep on lands from the perspective of players. How highly should you take non-basic lands when drafting? How many lands should you put in your deck? What counts as a mana source? How many sources do you need to cast your spells reliably? What kinds of cards should you splash and how do you manage a splash successfully? What about four and five color decks?

Our listener submitted pack 1, pick 1 this week comes from listener Tristan. Thanks, Tristan!

Discussed in this episode:

• Anthony’s Turbo Cube
• 17lands
• Frank Karsten’s seminal “How many colored sources do you need to consistently cast your spells?”
• “The Case for more Fetchlands” from Riptide Lab

Timestamps

• 0:00 — Turbo Cube full draft review
• 7:58 — Main topic preview
• 11:17 — Listener submitted pack 1, pick 1
• 14:59 — The pros and cons of lairs
• 16:48 — Beginning of main topic: How highly should you draft lands?
• 23:40 — How many lands should you put in your deck?
• 33:56 — What counts as a mana source?
• 37:28 — How many mana sources do you need to cast your spells reliably?
• 47:20 — Tying it all together: building your manabase at the draft table
• 54:55 — An addendum on four and five color manabases

Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

• Andy’s “Bun Magic” Cube
• Anthony’s “Regular” Cube

If you have a question for the show, or want us to do a pack 1, pick 1 from your cube, email us at [email protected]. Please include how you’d like to be credited on air, your pronouns, and if you’re submitting a cube for the pack 1, pick 1, a link to said cube.

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Musical production by DJ James Nasty.